Also Jill, “Matt Cutts typically says he’s not speaking officially for Google when he posts in his blog”

I don’t believe that for a second, maybe the official part whatever that means but I am pretty sure everything he writes is given a green/red light from the powers-that-be at Google

I mean come on… that has a footprint the size of bigfoot! Nobody bothered to read the RFC to find out what “nofollow” as an attribute of an element does/says. It says basically the the author doesn’t trust the content… so basically all the stooges who thought they were gaming Google were actually saying what? Hey I don’t trust my own content… how could someone not see that ends badly or is not very effective? They might want to think more about how they use links as nav and then you don’t need to use sculpting do you. Isn’t that actually the best way to fix the problem if it ever was one?

Let’s take the blog comment example and say that we’re using a plug-in or code to selectively follow comments (trusted sources are followed, unknown sources are nofollowed). Previously, link juice would flow to the followed sources, as it should, because we want to give them a vote of confidence. This isn’t PR sculpting; it’s at the heart of how the algo is supposed to work. Now, those trusted links are essentially being penalized, as a large portion of link juice gets distributed to the nofollow’ed links and then evaporates.

Here’s another example: Let’s say you have a “Print this page” link on your website. For numerous reasons, including dupe content issues and spider control, you nofollow that link. It has no real value to Google. Now, you’re essentially leaking PR to that page. Is this a huge problem? Maybe not, but why should you be penalized for a practice that benefits both Google and users?

I don’t want to blow nofollow itself and this change out of proportion. I just think there’s a fundamental difference between when we as SEOs deduce a tactic from the algo and engage in it, and when Google endorses a tactic that then gets applied by a wide audience (including many non-SEOs). There’s a different level of accountability involved, and Google fell short this time around, IMO.

” fix their site structure/architecture instead” doesn’t come close to saying it doesn’t work as advertised, implied or suggested. Not even a little bit, Doug.

Likewise, saying Google’s problem is giving out too much information when we’re discussing a tag *they* introduced and for which implementation *we* are responsible makes no sense. At all. None. Unless of course this is how you work. That someone calls you and say “hey dude, you should add rel=”disregard” to your links” … and you just do that because, well, asking too many questions would be useless since none of us have to know how anything works at all.

Hmmm…

Yes they did. They warned that anyone not expert at PR and this sculpting stuff should probably fix their site structure/architecture instead. Also; the nofollow thing will continue to work as it always worked. You sell links; use nofollow. You don’t trust an outgoing link; use nofollow. I’m not sure what you mean by “disregarding” nofollow.

Google’s biggest prob is giving the SEO industry too much info over the years. The industry always wants more and more and then yet some more. It’s never enough. Why would that benefit Google? It doesn’t as we now clearly see. I questioned Google about that fact quite some ago. Why do SEO’s need to know the parts of the algo and why does Google feel the need to say anything at all? Figure things out yourselves, I say. And Google; shut the heck up from now on.

This isn’t like an algo change – we all know Google makes the rules, we try to divine those rules, and we roll the dice. Nofollow was introduced for perfectly good reasons, people used it in good faith, and now we’re being told it’s not what we think it is. Google warned us about PR sculpting along the way, sure, but they never said that they were essentially disregarding nofollow (at least, in an SEO sense) until now.

Does it change how I work with my clients or practice SEO? No, at least not much. Does it change how likely I am to adopt or evangelize Google’s next mandate? Absolutely.